LOVATO AT LARGE: Polson's tourism tax? I've changed my mind
Since Jan. 3, 2014, I have openly supported and even tried to lead the charge to revive our downtown and build out our so-called off-season through tourism marketing.
I made a presentation to the county. I made a presentation to the city. I made a presentation to the chamber. I made a presentation to Polson Business Community. I spoke to the state's tourism office.
The reaction was basically the same for all: This is a great concept but we don't have a dime to help you with and if you want to get started, good luck with that. Two of the organizations actually attacked me and tried to injure my little company just for trying to help them.
After seven months of getting more rejections than a leper on a dating site, I realized that there appears to be a lot Fred Sanfords in Polson. I drew this conclusion after experiencing the reactions of civic and business leaders when I asked for some money: They clutched their hearts, raised their other hand skyward, and staggered incoherently.
When the city proposed a tourism tax, I thought the idea might be a good way to get something
Click on the logo to view our mock marketing plan.
started. It did bother me that so much of the collected taxes would go to paving city streets while only 2 percent would go to tourism. I did a little math, and figured by the time Polson had enough money for marketing, I might be too old to remember what a tourist was, or members of my own family, for that matter.
So, I threw my hands in the air and left it alone. Last week, out of the blue Montana sky, I was invited to a meeting and heard an interesting proposal from business leaders who get it: Let's create our own visitor's bureau dedicated only to promoting Polson/Lake County to urban areas from farther away to attract over-night visitors who would come, leave us some money, then go away.
The members would add a very small fee to out-of-town customers' total bill and spend 100 percent of that cash on marketing. Shazaam!
With this plan, we might have enough money to actually get something started before I qualify for Social Security!
But Vince, you cry, what are the advantages and reasons for bringing in some additional commerce to our pristine berg?
Too many to list but let me try with the big stuff.
* Lake County has the highest, or one of the highest, rates of suicide and drug use in the entire country. Our drug rate is even higher than most urban ghettos. And the numbers are concentrated among our young people, 15- to 25-year olds, who commit suicide at twice the rate of the rest of the nation. I have seen this type of phenomenon before. Kids grow up and learn quickly that job prospects locally are lacking. The smart kids go off to college and want to return but have no job to come back to. The rest are stuck, shortly before or after graduation, with the realization that sleeping in their parents' garage might be a long-term lifestyle while they work minimum wage jobs with no career arc for the next 50 years. Pretty Bleak. Pass the narcotics and Jim Morrison CDs.
* Polson and its neighbors are getting beaten up with recent socio-economic surveys that show our population is poor, underemployed, violent and addicted.
Below are some cold-hard facts regarding Montana cities cited by several survey sites. (I will use Wikipedia in the following rankings from 2013, the most recent available)
CRIME
Polson ranks No.2 in crime in Montana
Violent Crime Rank: 5 Property Crime Rank: 1
Polson has the most property crime per capita of any city in the state. Residents of Polson faced a 1 in 15 chance of being the victim of theft or arson in 2013, an 8 percent rise from 2011.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, violent crime jumped 50 percent from 2011 to 2013, making Polson the second most dangerous city in Montana.
Ronan ranks No. 5 Violent Crime Rank: 1 Property Crime Rank: 10
Ronan is the most violent place in Montana. Ronan residents faced a 1 in 128 chance of being the victim of violence in 2013. Violent crime rose by 25 percent from 2011 to 2013.
Click on the picture to see Fred's heart attack.
POVERTY
Pablo ranks as No. 2 Poorest Poverty Level: 47.0% Unemployment Rate: 28.8%
Polson is No. 8 Poorest
Poverty Level: 23.2% Unemployment Rate: 8.5%
A couple of other thoughts here: Polson's main street and downtown are deader than Fred Sanford's wife. Just a walking survey shows that about 30 to 40 percent of all the buildings on Main Street are empty and about 30 percent of the businesses downtown are in no way tourist oriented. I would point out that when the biggest occupied office building closest to Highway 93 is a church, that's a pretty strong barometer. Amen! Finally, no government agency significantly helped any of the major commercial growth we've seen in the last two years.
A few weeks ago the undersheriff told us that the county jail is so full, that sometimes, non-violent felony suspects are booked and released. (See our story HERE )
It also did not help that S&K Gaming, part of the CSKT, just bucked off its major sponsorship of the Flathead River Rodeo; an event that helped pack Polson for three days every summer. (See our story HERE)
In the next few weeks I hope to gather enough local businesses who give a damn about how Polson looks in 10 or 20 years and beyond. Once unified, we can collectively bypass another layer of sloth-like government. We can develop an active marketing campaign for the spring of 2017 and start building out the so-called off-season.
We can only hope.